Verblonde

I had some muppet in a Nurnberg do that earlier; I (sort of) get the notion of zipping round the top of the map to knock over the two forts, to make life slightly easier later. What I don't get is then just sitting still for - as you say - ten minutes before you can do anything else. I still wouldn't do it myself, of course, because there are far more useful things to be doing, but I wouldn't lose my rag entirely if something fast did a kind of 'drive by' on the forts, before sprinting south again to do something more worthwhile...

What others have said, but I would also suggest not getting *too* hung up on WR - the 'point' of the game is not to achieve 'x' WR; rather, use it as a metric (along with others) to assess how you're progressing. BTW if it hasn't been mentioned already, make sure you're playing all the classes (but not at too high a tier, necessarily) - even if you have a 'main' class, it's worthwhile to get at least vaguely proficient in the others too, as it'll give you a much better handle on what the various classes are trying to do to you.

Having calmed down a bit (I may not have been entirely mellow earlier), it can't be beyond the wit of man to devise some way to get people to learn at least the really basic stuff - for goodness' sake, I was all kinds of tuberous early on with most of the Ops, so it has to be doable. From what I'm seeing with the present one, what causes most stupid losses is not watching the timer (or understanding its significance); perhaps some tweaks to the in-game notifications might be in order - maybe much bigger 'you have ten minutes left' notes, plus make the exit - and the fact you're supposed to head for it - a *lot* more obvious. That kind of stuff. I would mention tutorials, but WG seems a bit allergic to them...

By all that is unholy, the teams today have been (on the whole) truly 'special'; so many utter cretins with no idea what they're actually supposed to be doing, or (apparently) even able to understand what those little numbers slowly getting smaller on the top-right of the screen mean. It's been spectacularly painful today...

+1 for that, right there...

I think you can: https://eu.wargaming.net/support/en/products/wows/article/22943/ "We understand that after a Premium ship is sold, you may want it back at a later date. If this happens, we may be able to help. Conditions You can request one (1) restoration of Premium ships every six (6) months. There are no limitations in the number of ships per request. You must have at least the same amount of credits on your game account that you received for the sale of your Premium Ship/s. You must have enough available empty slots in your Port, so the restored ship/s can be delivered." I would urge you very strongly to get all your sold premiums back e.g. Arizona is pretty decent in the current Op (lots of silver earning/captain training), and the others you mention all have their place, not least if/when snowflakes come round again - a single battle earned you coal or steel last time (this is mostly where my Black came from)...

As I recall, they didn't; I lost count of the number of places where it was stated that the 10 km radar was an error, and would be fixed. For example, this took me less than thirty seconds to find: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/game-updates/update-084-soviet-battleships/ " Fixed an error in the operation range of the Surveillance Radar consumable for cruisers VIII AL Montpelier and VIII Wichita. " It was always widely known that, once the mistake was fixed, Montpelier would basically be a marginally worse premium Cleveland; as at least some of the reviews state (LWM for one), this is no bad thing, as Cleveland is pretty decent to start with, and Montpelier gives you all the usual premium ship advantages. A stroll through my posting history will show I'm more than happy to kick WG when they deserve it, but this isn't really one of those occasions...

Aye - before the split in the US cruiser line, there was a mixed line of CL and CA, with Cleveland at T6. The T6 Cleveland used to be a monster, although I wasn't much good in her. BTW +1 to the getting your Wichita back - if they ever bring the T8 Ops back, you'll make the same silver in an afternoon! 'Never sell premiums' is a very good mantra to follow...

According to wikipedia, she was the second of the Montanas, so it makes sense... (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana-class_battleship)

Mummy always said that if I couldn't think of something kind/nice to say, then I shouldn't say anything at all...

What I've been doing (that seems to work - in conjunction with your excellent advice from the other day) is plonk a fighter on top of said DD, before turning to make a more considered attack run, or just to light the blighter up for my allies to shoot at. That assumes one has fighters left, of course, although I've tended to only regularly run out with torp planes, as they're getting the most use now.

Has something changed in a recent patch that I missed? Did WG finally remove the 'detected' icon that pings when planes are seen by a DD (or any ship), so telling them that one is in the general vicinity? With that ping, and some judicious turns, finding a DD (even with AA off) used to be pretty straightforward...

Aye - I believe they're being tested at the moment (I think there may be some useful links in the Dev Blog bit of the forum)...

Yup, although I think only one is in the armoury at the moment; the other came from a collection (French BBs?). edit: @Panocek beat me to it, and his point about BBs is very well made - the Honores are excellent on BBs too...

Yes, at least mine can - that's with a CE captain. Since the torp range was buffed, I *think* it can even without, but the window is quite small. BTW, speaking of captains, if you have one of the 'Honore' captains, they're a good pick for Aigle, as their magic EM makes the turret traverse a lot more comfortable...

Thanks again! So far, I'm on two wins (4, and 5 stars), plus one dismal failure where I came top (easily), but at least two of our team hadn't entirely grasped the concept that winning is a) desirable, and b) requires at least half of the team to be in the exit circle...!

Thank you very much for the tips on how to CV with this Op! I'm not exactly a good CV player (in a similar way to how a pygmy hippopotamus is not exactly a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi), but just did an awful lot better trying to follow your suggestions - much appreciated!

The boring answer to the original question is: whatever you can play the most effectively in (and don't forget that there won't be any CVs, so one can play things with naff AA again, and leave the AA upgrades behind as well). Something you have a good captain available for is also a good idea, as the extra skills can make a significant difference. Personally, I'll probably start with Haida, and Z-39, and see how it goes. I do have a Belfast, but suck royally in her, so she'll be staying in port...

T7 sprint should be fun - an opportunity to take out several ships that I'd previously mothballed due to them not working in a CV-heavy environment...

Overall, I would wait and see if you can get enough tokens for the captain - as @thiextar implies, he's the best reward overall.

It'll depend a lot on what sort of ships you like and/or play most. She's arguably the best Omaha in the game, so if you dig cruisers she's pretty worthwhile. That said, she sometimes gives the impression of being made entirely from citadels, so developing your 'not being seen' and 'bravely running away' games is essential (although that's true of an awful lot of cruisers at almost every tier). T5 can often be fun, although my main objections are that you get up-tiered a lot (obviously), and there aren't any Ops available at that level (so you might get more use from a T6/7). That said, a freebie Murmansk is well worth a modest amount of grinding...

Both would be ideal, but the impression I'm getting is that it's very hard to design a game mode that does provide both. Ranked certainly seems not to, at least for the bulk of people...

I might offer a slight amendment to this sentiment: it's the best simple measure we have. I think this may be part of the issue with ranked, in that it's trying to satisfy a need for an easy way for players to know how good they, or their peers, are; in that regard, it's probably not doing a bad job (apart from the likelihood that enough players are avoiding ranked to make any results from ranked at least partially moot). The trouble is, as we all know, that it's inordinately difficult to distill one's competence down to one single value e.g. WR is out (I currently have a 100% WR in the present season, but would have to be Olympic-standard delusional to think I was any better than the sub-50% potato I really am), damage is out, and so on. The only way to assess how good someone really is, is via a careful analysis of a wide range of their stats overall, and even then you get a vague answer much of the time (e.g. a 60% WR player who only plays one class - how good are they really?). So, I'd suggest that ranked isn't a catastrophically bad design if the aim is to assign an approximate value to those players who get involved's competence; it just isn't all that much fun to get that value. The question then becomes do we prefer fun, or a notional value of competence at the game, to be the priority?

Short answer: not really, which is why, lately, I tend to only bother playing to around Rank 10. Although it would be fun to play in divisions with people I know, I think I agree with the suggestion that a communicating division is too OP for the small team format of Ranked. That said, something clearly needs to be done about Ranked, as it's long gone past 'interesting challenge' and is well into 'irritating grind'. For me, personally, the big turn-off is the end of irreversible ranks after R12; I simply don't have the patience or time to endure the frustration of endless yo-yoing between ranks that is required to get to R1 (assuming you aren't a unicum, which I'm clearly not). But, if more irreversible ranks were added, the mode just becomes about stringing much smaller sequences of wins together, so devaluing the achievement of getting to R1 (even if said achievement can often be largely about RNG). WG clearly want the mode to be more popular/universal (hence the rentals), but I think they face a largely impossible task: if the mode is really about finding the best players, then almost by definition, it won't be much fun for the bulk of the player base (including me) who basically lack the ability to get far beyond the end of irreversible ranks. On the other hand, if they change it to make it fun for we sub-par players, then it ceases to be any sort of challenge for the serious players (most people on here). Surprisingly, I think WG are vaguely on the right track in some respects: my feeling is that ranked should largely stay as it is i.e. a (tedious for most) test of who are the better players; the various sprints are a pretty good way of having a dash-to-the-end grind that's vaguely competitive, but easy enough (and using tiers) that more or less everyone can do okay with. I think I might tweak the rewards a bit, such that those from sprint were a bit more interesting (or have a wider range of low-mid tier coal ships, if coal remains the main reward). Edit: I wouldn't repeat the rentals again, in regular ranked anyway; they'd be fine for sprint, as that is rather less serious.

I would respectfully disagree with this - on several of the maps (at least) there is more than one legitimate (or at least 'likely to be chosen') approach, and it's no bad thing to make sure as many people as possible are on the same page at the start.